Dante by Marco Santagata

Author:Marco Santagata [Santagata, Marco]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780674504868
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2016-04-11T04:00:00+00:00

Baldo d’Aguglione’s amnesty

In the year when Henry’s prospects were beginning to fail, the other actors on the scene were busy in diplomatic exchanges and some major military activity.

Clement V continued in his attempt to forge an alliance between Henry and Robert of Anjou, cementing it with a marriage between Robert’s son Charles, Duke of Calabria, and Henry’s daughter Beatrice. The pope’s plans (though not those of the emperor) were that Beatrice would bring as a dowry the kingdom of Arles, a vast area of lands extending east of the Rhone, which included large estates such as those of the counts of Provence, Burgundy, and Savoy, which were part of the empire, but over which the emperor had exercised only nominal rights since the times of the Swabians.30 The most powerful lords of the area were the Angevins themselves, the counts of Provence, who with such a marriage (already previously attempted with the Habsburgs) would have controlled the whole area. The project was bound to incur the hostility of Philip the Fair, who was extending the power of the French monarchy into those territories, using military means as well. And so, in May 1311, Clement would be forced to recant by declaring publicly that he would never have allowed the king of the Romans to concede any rights whatsoever over the kingdom of Arles to any prince who wasn’t the Roman Church. And this was one of the clearest indications that his attitude toward Henry was changing and that the influence of the king of France was having an effect.

Robert of Anjou continued to play a double game. He didn’t want to clash with the pope, sent diplomatic missions of reconciliation to Henry, and made his own proposals for marriage alliances in exchange for the appointment of his son Charles as imperial vicar for Tuscany. In short, he expressed willingness, on these conditions, to let the imperial entourage travel to Rome unhindered. But at the same time he was committing acts tantamount to blackmail: together with Florence he sent a large contingent of Catalan mercenaries in the pay of the Guelfs to occupy Versilia, thus closing the only land corridor still open to the imperial army, and sent an armed force to Rome under the command of his brother John, Count of Gravina, with the excuse of assuring Henry’s safety during his stay in Rome, but in reality (as would become clear) with the intention of preventing the coronation from going ahead.

Florence was working on two fronts: externally, it extended the network of Guelf alliances (at the end of March, a few days after Dante’s letter to the Florentines, a parliament of Guelf cities had been held in Florence itself); internally, it strengthened the city wall and united the people of the city as far as possible.

One of the most disturbing aspects of Florentine life was the fact that the conflict between political parties or rival families continued unabated within its walls, sometimes violently, even during the city’s most difficult moments. Even in 1311, private vendettas gave rise to disturbances and riots.

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